Underground
by messyhead
Summary: Steve is missing, Jaime must find him - somewhere 500 feet underground - and Oscar doesn't want her to go. Thanks to Neesie Pie who provided the original concept and some great morsels. Thanks to Bionic4Ever too!
1. Chapter 1

(There is only the very loosest resemblance in this story to the actual waterworks system of New York City. )

------

She listened as her two children clattered down the stairs of the apartment building - a full seven minutes late for school - bickering in high voices, shoe laces undone, backpacks bulging with homework, lunch, and sweets. Mrs. Deepa Bhattacharjee decided another cup of tea was in order.

Every single time she turned on the tap she marveled at the wonderful, clean, wholly drinkable water that came free from who knows where - straight into her teapot. She and her husband had lived in the United States for six years now, yet not a day went by that she was not grateful for it. Certainly she missed India, but there were many things to appreciate in her new home, and water was right at the top of the list.

But enough daydreaming. She had a huge order of sweets to make up for _The Golden Curry Palace_, and they weren't going to make themselves.

**----  
**

He gripped the steering wheel tightly and blinked several times to clear his vision, but Oscar Goldman was so tired the traffic light swam in front of his eyes. Only caffeine and intense anxiety kept him going at times like this. Doubtless he was a road hazard, but fortunately at three a.m. there wasn't a lot of traffic.

Russ's voice was still echoing around in his aching head, in that special tone the junior associate saved for moments of irrationality on Oscar's part. He'd been using it for the better part of an hour, pacing around the office, arguing, cajoling, urging - while Oscar glared at him from his large leather chair, arms folded, his mood confrontational. Oscar was behaving badly and he knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. Fear and anger had sucked all diplomacy from him.

"We are _out_ of options, Oscar. I talked to Stu and he says there's no way his unmanned robot could do the job - too much varied terrain for one thing. That idea just doesn't cut it."

To Russ's immense frustration, Oscar refused to acknowledge any of his arguments, and instead continued stubbornly repeating the same demand over and over again.

"Admit it, Russ."

"You're underestimating her, Oscar. Remember the Doomsday device?" Russ was feeling increasingly desperate; he had never seen his boss so intractable, and _somehow_ he was going to have to bring him around.

"I do remember Doomsday. I didn't like that either. Now admit it."

Russ paced away from Oscar and turned, his frustration finally getting the better of him. "For God's sake - you knew this was a possibility when you married her! We are talking about a national disaster here, not to mention a presidential order!"

Oscar glared, unmoved. "Admit it."

Russ sighed and slumped in resignation. "Okay, okay. Yes! I admit it. There's a good chance she could be killed."

"Thank you." Oscar replied, his voice edged in hostility. Oscar Goldman was not one to get pinned into corners - he was normally far too shrewd - but pinned he was, and in the worst possible way. "Now perhaps you can explain to me how it is that I, as a man, as a husband, am supposed to send my wife to her death?"

"She's all we've got, Oscar! And I have to believe she can do it - and if she can't nobody can. Look, we can't just sit back and do nothing. Countless lives are at stake. You know we have to do something -and if we don't - you're through."

"From the OSI standpoint, it's throwing good money after bad. It's a fool's errand."

"What about Steve?" It was Oscar's strong sense of moral responsibility for those in his service that elevated him above the typical Washington bureaucrat - a trait Russ hoped would now move him to reason."There's a chance he's still alive. Don't we owe it to him to try to pull him out of there?"

"I know exactly what I owe Steve!" Oscar bellowed, slamming his fist onto his desk.

Russ jumped and put his hand to his forehead. He looked at his boss, sitting bolt upright in his chair, his fist clenched, his eyes blazing - an exhausted, miserable, cornered man.

"Look," Russ said in a conciliatory tone, "maybe things will be a little clearer if we both get some sleep."

The light changed to green, but Oscar failed to notice. There was only one thing that was clear to him. He was being pulled apart inch by excruciating inch, and there was no way out. He rested his head on the steering wheel.

The 'whoop whoop' of a siren startled him back to reality. He looked up to see a police car beside his, and a policeman looking at him with wary interest. Oscar gestured that he was fine and mouthed an apology. The policeman nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed, and then to Oscar's immense relief, waved him on.

As always, Jaime woke when she heard the key in the latch. She rolled over and checked the clock - three thirty a.m. She heard him slip into the room, heard the rustle of fabric as he changed out of his clothes, felt the weight of him on the bed, heard his exhausted sigh. How much sleep had he had in the last two days - four, five hours at most? And tonight, he would gather another three at best. She knew it would be welcome if she were to make a greeting and curl up against him, but she pretended to be asleep. He slid over to her instead, wrapping himself against her back and slipping his arm around her waist. He sighed again, this time with pure relief, and Jaime couldn't help but respond.

"Mmm." she murmured in greeting, nestling into him.

His arrival signaled the end of a good sleep for her as he spent the rest of night tossing and mumbling - the usual indicator he was under a lot of stress. He finally did settle just before dawn and the next thing she remembered was the sound of the alarm, which she ignored, and sometime after that the sound of Oscar swearing and leaping out of bed.

Not surprisingly he had overslept. Jaime offered to make him breakfast, which he refused despite her protest that he needed it. She felt like the pit crew for a race car, except that this particular race car would not stop moving as she tried to change the tires. As he knotted his tie and made a phone call, she hovered around him, daubing blood away where he had cut himself shaving and wiping a small stain from his jacket. He was radiating stress, barely noticing her presence.

_Is this what our lives have become? _she wondered.

"Aren't you going in today?" he asked absently, opening his briefcase on the kitchen table,and rifling through the contents. He was in particularly rough shape this morning. Nobody else saw this side of Oscar - the headaches, the shortness of breath, the difficulty sleeping. To the world outside he seemed to handle his work beautifully, but Jaime was beginning to wonder if he was getting too old for the stress.

"Professional day. I'm off."

"Lucky you." He checked his watch and downed the last of his coffee.

"Will I see you for dinner tonight?" she asked, grasping his lapels to get his attention.

"I don't know."

"Who are you again?" Jaime asked hotly. "You sort of look like someone I used to know, except old - and tired."

"I'm sorry." He finally looked her in the eye, but only for a moment. "I'll ... uh ... I'll try to get away."

There was something in his tone she didn't like - as though she were a tiresome obligation. "Well, don't do me any favors." she snapped, turning away to take a mug from the cupboard.

"Jaime..." he sighed.

"Just go!" she dismissed. "The entire western world is going to collapse into ruin if you don't go! Go!" She pulled the pot from the coffee maker and poured, spilling it in the process.

She heard him exhale heavily through his nose and put his cup on the counter with a bang. She could feel his anger, his frustration, his guilt - but he didn't say anything. He never did and he probably never would.

"Bye." he said tersely, and then he was gone. Jaime was left in that awful silence that follows the departure of one angry person from another. She stared at the droplets as they fell from the top of the coffee maker onto the hotplate below, making little "fssssttt" noises as the stink of burned coffee filled the air. She put the pot back in place and slapped the palm of her hand to her forehead. Why did she feel compelled to do this to him? This was a man who - at one time - was the absolute center of her universe. How was it they could repeat the same scene over and over again with exactly the same results?

They had been married for eight years now, five of which had been wonderful, and two of which had been very good - it was during this last year that things had become difficult. Once she had been an equal partner - his successes were her successes, missions and events were discussed over dinner or while falling asleep, and the stress and demands on his time were something she understood and accepted. In fact it made their time together more precious and meaningful. But the longer she had been away from the OSI, the less communicative he had become about his work, and the less she was inclined to accept the strange and erratic nature of their life together. The biggest difficulty for Jaime was that it was impossible to truly object. Was she really going to demand he come home at five when, like last week, he was contending with a very real threat of a missile attack from a rogue element in China? How could anyone compete with that? So she just ended up feeling angry - and unreasonable for feeling angry.

It seemed there was some sort of hole in his soul, a sense that he could never do enough, that whatever he did was not quite good enough, so he worked constantly to stave off what he was sure was imminent failure. Jaime had often wondered if everyone was so complicated. Was she that complicated? Were there all sorts of unconscious needs and fears and desires that drove her? She didn't think so. Truly, all she wanted was love and companionship. Oscar was good with the love part, but increasingly bad on the companionship part.

She scooped some cocoa into her coffee and stirred pensively. Was her marriage in trouble? Surely not - her mind repelled the thought. But she had to admit that for the first time since she and Oscar had been together, she was entertaining attractions to other men. In fact, she had a crush on the new physiologist in Rudy's lab. She called him The Hotshot - great looking, bright, funny, a few years younger than Jaime. Worse yet, he was attracted to her too. She couldn't help but be flattered - it was nice to feel visible for a change. Embarrassingly, Rudy had picked up on the attraction, and the other day upon interrupting one of their flirtations, fixed her with such a look she still wilted when she remembered it. She could never - would never - ever - betray Oscar's trust - but even her restlessness upset her deeply. And he was so completely loyal to her that she almost felt unworthy of him.

She sipped her coffee and wandered into the living room to look out the window. It was a gorgeous fall day, a deep blue sky creating breathtaking contrast for the reds and golds of the trees. She'd been looking forward to this day off - her class this year was proving particularly challenging. In fact they were hellions, if she was going to be honest about it. She was confident she'd have them whipped into shape by Christmas, but it was going to be hard work, and she was grateful for the break - but now her pleasure in her day off had been dulled.

A familiar presence at her feet drew her attention downward, and she met the intent green gaze of their big black cat, Schlomo.

"Mrow." he said, asking to be let out. He was a stray that had appeared in their yard a few years ago, and before long they were putting offerings out for him every day and a month later he had moved in. He hadn't stopped purring since.

"Oh, Mo, don't you want to stay in and keep me company?"

"Mrow." he replied.

"You boys. You're all the same. Always off on your manly business."

She opened the french door and he slipped out and into the wilds of the back yard. She was going to have to shake off this bad temper, because otherwise the entire day would be wasted. Maybe she was just over thinking things. She would get dressed, take her homework and walk down to her favorite coffee shop for an hour of reading and people watching. She would get everything straightened out with Oscar, hopefully tonight. It wasn't as though she didn't love him - but wait - she probably wouldn't see him tonight - in fact, when _was_ she next going to see him? Frustration blanketed her again and she turned back to the house.

Just as she stepped back inside, the telephone rang.


	2. Chapter 2

The conference taking place in Oscar's office this morning was particularly tense. Jack Hansen and Oscar were at loggerheads, while Rudy observed from the office couch, out of the line of fire. Russ stood back, arms folded, for once grateful for Jack's intervention.

"I don't see that you have much of a choice here, Oscar." Jack Hansen stood over the man behind the desk, his expression severe. Oscar for his part looked stiff and unyielding, his eyes fixed in front of him. "You know, the President seems to have a lot of faith in you. "Get Goldman on it" were his exact words. So the problem is yours, buddy. And if you don't act, I will. I have no compunction about going to the Secretary to bypass you completely." Jack hesitated, his expression that of a man holding all the aces. "You know, all I have to do is go to Jaime, and I know she'll see it my way."

"Don't even think about it." snapped Oscar, turning abruptly to face him. "It's none of your damned business! Besides, we are talking about an agent who has been out of active service for the better part of six years. I can't just throw her into the deep end like that!"

"Do you see an alternative?"

"I'm exploring other options, and I'm not prepared to give up on Steve yet. He's never let us down."

"Oh come on, Oscar! It's been two days now and time is running out. Get real! If this were anyone other than your wife you'd have sent them down the pipe yesterday. Why don't you just admit it?"

"Fine! I'll admit it." Oscar bellowed, rising from his chair."Would you want to send your wife down there?" He loomed over the smaller man, who didn't look the slightest bit moved.

"I had the good sense to marry a sweet little corporate lawyer from Kansas City - not a modern scientific miracle. You made your bed Oscar..."

"Jack," Rudy interjected, "give the man a minute to think, will you?"

Jack's eyes flicked from Rudy to Oscar and rested on Russ. "Okay." he said reluctantly. "I'm heading back to the office. I need your answer in half an hour."

"Fine." Oscar snapped.

Jack made his way through the room, Russ following. "Half an hour..." he repeated as he walked out. Russ shot Rudy a significant glance just before closing the door behind him.

"Oh God, Rudy..." Oscar blurted, "I can't do this."

Rudy struggled to find something constructive or at least positive to say as he watched his friend pace back and forth. His heart ached. Somehow he had only ever imagined blue skies for Oscar and Jaime.

Oscar stopped abruptly and slumped into a chair, covering his face with his hands. "This is my worst nightmare. What am I going to do?"

"It's a tough one, old pal." Words were so inadequate sometimes. "How does Jaime feel?"

"I haven't told her."

After all their years of friendship, Oscar could still surprise him. "What?!"

Oscar looked up at his old friend, peeved at his apparent lack of insight. "Oh come on, Rudy! You know Jaime! You know what she's like! Especially as Steve is involved..." His voice trailed off. Eight years of marriage and he still feared being upstaged by 'what might have been'.

Rudy's tone softened. "Jaime loves you, Oscar..." He bit back the concern he'd been feeling of late - for the first time he wondered about the truth of that statement.

"And I love her, which is precisely why I can't ask her to do this. I can't lose her, Rudy, I can't..." Abruptly he looked away. "Of course I ... oh damn it." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I don't even know how to bring it up to her - she's so angry with me these days." Shaking his head in disgust he added, "I'm a lousy person to be married to."

"I'm afraid we don't have time for this conversation old pal." Rudy was Oscar's sole confidant on the subject of his marriage, and over the last year Oscar had been coming to him more frequently, keyed up and confused after some disagreement with Jaime. "You're a good man, and you're a pretty good husband, all things considered."

Oscar folded forward, putting his head in his hands.

"Look, just cut yourself some slack, okay? I promise you and I are going to sit down with some good scotch after all this mess is dealt with and we'll talk then. But right now I think you'd better call Jaime."

"I did. She's bringing me a change of clothes. She'll say yes - you know that, don't you?"

"I know."

"She's forty years old, Rudy - it's not like she's twenty-five anymore."

"Twenty-five or forty, she's still the best, Oscar. Still the only one who can pull this off."

"But if Steve couldn't do it... Listen... she'll be here any minute...I think I need a little time to pull myself together."

"Sure. Of course." Rudy replied, rising to his feet.

------

As Jaime walked into the OSI with Oscar's overnight bag in hand, she was accosted by Jack Hansen on his way out.

"Jaime!" Hansen lit up at the sight of her. "Thank God he's finally come to his senses. Don't take too long up there, huh?" He slapped her lightly on the arm and continued down the stone steps.

"Sure Jack." Jaime replied, as though she knew what he was talking about. Walking through the halls, she was struck by the uneasy energy all around. Her first stop was Russ's office. The door was open and he was stood in the middle of the room, biting his fingernail and staring at nothing.

"Okay Russ, 'fess up." she demanded. Russ looked so relieved to see her she thought he might fall into her arms and cry.

"Jaime..." he blurted, "we need you - badly - there's no other way around it and I wish there was. I just can't do anything with him and so it's all up to you -"

"Whoa whoa whoa... " she interrupted, grasping him by the shoulders. "What is going on?"

Russ paused to collect himself. "He should tell you. But you're going to have to get tough with him. Suffice to say - it's incredibly important and we don't have much time." He paused and looked hard into her eyes. "It's also pretty dangerous."

Jaime nodded slowly, frowning. "Okay. I'll... I'll see you later." She left Russ and continued down the hall, feeling increasingly anxious. As she passed through the double doors of Oscar's outer office Callahan looked up from her telephone conversation and pointed to his door, motioning her in.

Leaning against the window frame, his head against the glass, Oscar turned when he heard her enter. She had been prepared to start lecturing, but when she saw his face she couldn't bring herself to do it. He looked so utterly sad, so completely defeated.

"Hey, Bup," she said softly, as she put his bag on the couch,"what's going on?" She'd been calling him Bup for years, ever since he'd confessed that "Buppy" had been his mother's nickname for him. He pretended not to like it, but she knew otherwise.

He said nothing, and instead walked over and took her into his arms.

"You'd better tell me honey." she said gently, rubbing his back. "If you're trying to keep me out of something you ought to know by now that it never works."

"Yeah..." he sighed, "okay." He released her and moved backward to perch on the edge of his desk, and she sat on the sofa. He stared at the floor wearing a glazed, abstracted look, and Jaime was sure that she could have placed a live firecracker in his trouser pocket and he wouldn't have noticed.

"Oscar! " she finally blurted.

"I'm sorry - " he said, shaking himself out of it, "I'm just trying to sort this all out for myself." He took a breath, straightened his spine, and said, "Have you ever heard of a sandhog?"

"A sandhog?" It was not quite the opening Jaime expected. She giggled uncertainly. "Can't say I have."

"That's the name for the men who dig tunnels for the gas, sewer and water lines. It's a dangerous job, hundreds of feet underground, involving dynamite, poor ventilation, mud, cave-ins - pretty much like coal mining. Recently it was discovered that a substantial amount of dynamite had disappeared from the stockpiles of New York City's underground crew. The mayor's office became concerned about a potential terrorist threat and got on the phone with the President, who decided the OSI should investigate. Steve went undercover as a sandhog three weeks ago, and he was on to something. He figured out roughly where the dynamite was stashed, and was close to identifying the thieves." Oscar paused and clenched his teeth so that his jaw muscles flexed. "Two days ago Steve failed to come out of the hole."

"What?!" Jaime's eyes widened.

"Yesterday, the mayor's office got a call - $50 million dollars to be dropped off at a rail yard in Yonkers by four thirty p.m. tomorrow, or at five o'clock a bomb would be detonated that would blow out the water supply for the entire city. Judging by the amount of explosives they've stolen, properly placed they could do just that. And they must have Steve, because they said if we sent anyone _else_ down they would flood the pipes and set off the bomb immediately."

"Oh my god." Jaime gasped. "Do you have any idea who they are?"

"No. The caller was a woman."

"Really?"

"She had a faint Irish accent. She claimed no affiliation with any organization. It could be the IRA I suppose, but I can't imagine why..." He shook his head, puzzled. "Theoretically any intelligent and resourceful person could work their way down there. The network of tunnels and pipes is so vast it would be easy to remain unseen - but probably only a sandhog could get hold of the dynamite."

"No water for the entire city..."Jaime mused over the horrific scenario, "they'd have to evacuate, wouldn't they?"

Oscar nodded. "It would be absolute chaos - panic, lawlessness - I can't even imagine the kinds of casualties we'd see."

"And what about Steve? Do we even know...anything?" She felt sick to her stomach. Steve had prevailed through so many dangerous situations that she now automatically assumed he would always come out unscathed.

"No." he sighed. "I've been hoping he was going to pop up..."

"And you didn't tell me?" She felt a hot blast of anger. How could he have kept this from her when she could have made a difference? And possibly saved Steve's life?

He shook his head and averted his eyes.

Jaime tamped down her fury. It would help nothing if she were to blow up. "Well, I can certainly see why you were tossing and turning all night."

He nodded. "Sorry."

"And you are expected to fix this."

He nodded again.

She bit her lip as she assessed the situation. "Why don't they just pay up?"

"If all else fails the city will pay up, but there will be nothing to stop the blackmailers from demanding more - and the city is practically bankrupt as it is. And then there's Steve."

Jaime nodded thoughtfully as she stood and reseated herself beside her husband and put her arm around him. As gently as she could manage she said, "So, despite the disappearance of a close friend, a presidential order, and the potential for disaster in the country's largest city, you were going to try to avoid sending me in there."

He looked utterly dejected. "I was looking at other options."

"Honey, I appreciate the sentiment - really, I do - but that's just a little bit dumb."

"Don't mince words or anything." he replied resentfully. Abruptly he stood and moved behind his desk. "Look, everyone around here is treating me like I've lost my mind, but you tell me how sending you in there makes any sense." He unfolded a large diagram. "Come on over here." As she arrived at his side he pointed at the bottom of the paper. "Water comes in from upstate New York through water tunnels numbers one and two, deep underground. It's fed upward through a network of narrower and narrower pipes until it reaches the surface. Steve believed that the dynamite was likely stockpiled somewhere around here," he made a circling motion in the lower right of the diagram, "where it could blow out major lines from each of the two tunnels, thus cutting the city off completely. We believe these guys used one of two abandoned pipes as an access tunnel to a remote spot where they could build what is essentially a big dynamite bomb. The pipes run through tunnels, many of which have become dangerous or filled with silt over the years, so that the only means of access is through the pipes themselves."

"Would they have to blast out an area to set up the bomb?"

"Yes. And they would have hauled the explosives in small amounts through the pipes until they had enough to make a really big bang."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Industrious. Now here's the problem." he said, becoming emphatic. "If you go down there, you'll have to travel through these same pipes, which are not more than three feet in diameter. So. If there's only one way in, there's no way for you to quietly sneak in there. You'll just pop up out of that pipe like a duck at the shooting gallery." He took a large unsteady breath. "They've already warned us not to send anyone else down, and as they are apparently prepared to bring the entire city of New York to its knees, I don't think they'd have any compunction about killing you - and then detonating the bomb. Then, say you _do_ manage to talk them out of blowing your head off, where do you take it from there? If Steve couldn't overpower them, I don't see how you can either - and I doubt they'd just let you go." He looked hard at her, almost daring her to find him wrong. "And," he added, building his case, "if you do manage to get out, they can still flood the pipe. Scuba gear is too cumbersome, so you have to be able to hold your breath and swim - _fast_ - all the way back to where you started, some eight hundred feet. And what if you have Steve with you and what if he's injured? There are a couple of uptake pipes you could theoretically access along the way, but all the valve mechanisms are so old and decrepit I'm told they would likely break instead of open." He cleared his throat and took another breath.

Jaime bit the knuckle of her forefinger pensively. It was certainly an unattractive scenario. She suddenly noticed that Oscar's hand was shaking slightly on the diagram. _Of course_... he was a bit claustrophobic - he had been disqualified from submarine duty in the Navy because of it.

"Even if you ignore my obvious attachment to you," he continued, "from a purely professional standpoint I've already lost one of my best agents. If I send you into what looks to me to be a death trap, then I'll be down two of my best agents and they'll detonate the bomb. _Now_ do you see why I've been trying to avoid sending you down there?"

"Well, honey," Jaime replied slowly, "I know you, and if you had a real alternative, you would have mentioned it by now."

He exhaled and crossed his arms, regarding her wearily. "So I should send you down there as a sacrificial lamb, to make it look like I'm doing something?"

"No." she replied quietly, smiling, "you should send me down there because I've had a long career of beating the odds. It has to be done. So let's do it. Besides, we have to rescue Steve."

He looked at her a long time, and finally nodded sadly. "God, I hope he's alive. I feel like I've been weighing the value of his life against yours... I feel ... awful about it. I just... didn't know what to do."

Jaime nodded. "I know. You're doing the best you can."

"I don't even know if I am anymore. I'm so tired, Jaime."

"Yeah." she replied quietly, gently stroking the back of his head. "Bup, about this morning..."

The phone rang. "Sorry." he said, grabbing it. "Yes, Jack. Yes. We're ready." He sounded resigned. "Two minutes." He dropped the receiver and stood. "A plane is waiting. I'm sorry...you didn't have a chance to pack anything."

"Well, I packed my toothbrush, just in case." she smiled. "I had a feeling about this one."


	3. Chapter 3

Oscar, Jaime, Rudy, Russ, and Jack arrived in lower Manhattan a little over an hour later and were immediately swept into a conference in the Mayor's office.

Terse greetings were made and the group from the OSI was lead into what the Mayor referred to as "The War Room". There were people milling everywhere. Ten color coded telephones were ringing off the hook, six televisions set to local news were blaring in the background, and two computers on the back wall of the room whirred and clicked as they worked. Several people joined the group as they entered the mayor's office, and the last person closed the door behind them.

"So, Ms. Sommers," the Mayor began,"I'm told that you're to be our savior." Frank Lieberman scrutinized her with bright small eyes, his expression keen, friendly - and anxious. She could see that he wanted to believe in her. As the brand new Mayor, this tiny, charismatic man was charged with the enormous task of turning the great city around. Broke and riddled with crime, New York City was in a terrible plight. Now, only months into his tenure, he had been thrown in the deep end, facing a disaster the likes of which the city had never seen.

She sat down beside Oscar on a large leather couch. "I'm going to do my best, Mr. Mayor."

He smiled. "We'd best get right down to it." he said, casting an eye around the group. "Mr. Goldman, would you please tell us what you have in mind?"

Oscar cleared his throat, glanced at Jaime and stood. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I won't pretend this isn't a dire situation, nor will I pretend that our plan entails anymore than calling on the skills and resources of one very special individual. In a nutshell, we are going to send Jaime Sommers down into the tunnels to locate and diffuse the bomb."

"Just one person?" interrupted a tall, ropey man, who had clearly arrived from some very dirty work site. "What's she going to take down with her?"

"She'll have a headlamp and an atomic location transponder."

"And that's it?" the man sputtered, his eyes round with indignation.

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to explain to you why she is singularly qualified to do this job, as it's classified information. You'll just have to trust us."

"But..."

"Chuck..." the mayor interrupted, "let him finish."

"In the meantime," Oscar continued, "your people will drop off the fifty million dollars at the requested location by four o' clock. Jack Hansen of the NSB..." he gestured to Hansen, perched on a window sill, "will follow the money. We will not mark or track it electronically in any way."

"Don't we risk losing it completely?" Lieberman asked nervously.

"Yes, but that's a chance we have to take. We can't raise the ire of these people any more than we already have. We have no idea how sophisticated an operation this is, and they must not think that we aren't acting in good faith. Jaime will need the all the time we can buy."

"Don't worry, Mr. Mayor. I'm not going to lose that cash." Jack said confidently.

The mayor nodded. "Thank you."

"Jack, do you want to describe your plan?"Oscar asked.

"Sure." Jack replied, standing. Jaime noted with irritation that he looked quite full of himself. "The blackmailer has demanded the money be placed in a specific boxcar in the Yonkers rail yard. We have NSB men, disguised as railway employees, stationed along the line for fifty miles. We believe the pick up will occur within 10 miles of the drop off, as they won't want to risk anyone else finding the cash. We have a couple of men riding with the engineer to ensure there will be no unscheduled stops, and that the train moves fast enough to foil anyone trying to jump aboard. When the pick up is made, we'll follow it, lying low till we have an all clear from your office."

The mayor nodded. "Thank you. Now perhaps we'd better get down to the particulars of the underground operation."

"With all due respect," interrupted the tall man again, "I would like to say again that I feel this is a job for the sandhogs." He made a wide, sweeping gesture as he spoke, as though the truth of his statement should be obvious to all. "We know the system inside and out, we're used to working down there, we know the dynamite and it's our territory. I just don't see what one lady could do that thirty sandhogs couldn't do better."

"I should introduce you."Lieberman said apologetically. "Chuck Souski is the foreman of the sandhog water crew, and an old friend of mine." They had grown up on the same street, and had remained friends despite the radically different paths their lives had taken. Lieberman knew his friend to be a deeply honest, decent man, but with a streak of resentment toward authority that had landed him in trouble many times over the years. He was now clearly irked by Goldman and the entire federal entourage, and would need some delicate handling. "We have discussed this issue, Chuck, several times over," he said firmly, "and I believe I've already told you that until we know who the culprit is, no sandhog is in the clear, making your proposition unworkable. I also mentioned, I believe, that risking one life is better than risking thirty. Sorry, Ms. Sommers." he added with a sympathetic look in Jaime's direction.

She nodded and smiled grimly, and turned her eyes to Oscar, who flinched at Lieberman's words.

"My boys wouldn't do this." Chuck shook his head. "They're all dying to find the guy."

"Well that's another thing. We don't need any vigilante justice. That said, we appreciate your desire and willingness to aid in this effort. You and your men are essential to our success. Now," Lieberman said to the group, "I'd like to quickly go over the city's part in this. First of all, we have pulled all sandhogs off the work site, partly for their own safety, and partly so we'll know that anyone coming up out of the ground after this point is suspect. We're stationing police at all water outlet pipes. They know to provide you, Ms Sommers, with whatever aid you require." Lieberman gestured to a young man standing by Chuck. "Lenny Souski, Chuck's nephew, will accompany you underground and send you on your way."

"Radio contact underground is impossible." Oscar added, his eyes still on Jaime. "The only way we'll know where you are is by transponder."

"Well gentlemen," Jaime said, rising to her feet, "Let's get to it."

Five minutes later she was standing at a back exit of city hall, police escort waiting. Most of the men who had attended the meeting milled around her, restless and anxious. Oscar, to her surprise, looked calm and stoic, discussing last minute details with the police chief. She had been waiting for him to switch into what she referred to as his 'Mother Hen Routine', where he would fuss about her safety until she mocked him with clucking noises to make him back off. But to her amazement there was no fussing, no unwanted advice, no admonishments to be careful. Now she found herself missing it.

But it was time to go. Lenny got into the back of the police car first and slid over to the far side.

"Better give me all the baubles." Oscar said, holding his hand out.

"Oh - right!" said Jaime, quickly removing her earrings and the pretty gold belt she had just bought. Oscar dropped them into his jacket pocket.

"Ring?" he asked.

"Doesn't come off." she replied. "Now, how about a kiss for luck from my boss?" He smiled reassuringly and took her in his arms, kissed her, held her tight for a moment, and released her.

"Go get 'em Babe." he said, his voice full of false courage.

She slipped into the back seat of the police car and settled, and then remembering something she quickly rolled her window down.

"What about Schlomo?"

He smiled. "I called Callahan. Schlomo will not starve."

And then she was gone. The police car gunned away, sirens blaring, and deftly slipped through the heavy traffic.

Chuck Souski stared at him. "She's your girlfriend?"

"No," Oscar replied, still watching the flashing lights recede in the distance. "she's my wife."

"You let your wife go down there?"

Oscar turned, looked at him with a kind of weary loathing, and walked back into city hall.

---

Lenny held the cage door open and Jaime stepped in. He flicked a switch and the elevator shuddered and rattled as it began the long, slow descent through the earth's crust. As it grew darker the air became stale and close. Jaime looked up and watched the spot of blue sky above becoming smaller and smaller.

A large, baby faced young man, Lenny studied his boots rather than attempt conversation. Not surprisingly he was rather pale, but his lips were bright red, like a porcelain doll. He wore a plaid shirt, khaki pants and enormous steel-toed boots - all caked in rich brown earth.

"It's warm!" she said.

"Yup." he replied. "Real toasty right down at the bottom. But we're only taking you to bathwater temperature - five hundred feet."

"Wow. Where are you working?"

"I'm on the new tunnel. Tunnel number three. Eight hundred feet." His eyes met Jaime's and she could see how proud he was. "We're finally doing something about this mess we've got down here. City waterworks are in terrible shape."

"I've heard."

"You''ll see for yourself." Lenny said ominously. "Tunnel number three is going to save this city. After you save it first, that is." he smiled.

"Yeah." replied Jaime, raising her eyebrows.

"I'm sorry about my uncle." he added, warming up a little. "He's kind of old fashioned."

"Oh, that's okay. This work obviously means a great deal to him."

"Yeah. It means a lot to all of us. We're proud of what we do. People have died down here making sure people up there have water to drink. I knew from when I was a little kid that I wanted to be a sandhog like Uncle Chuck. Not everybody can do it." He frowned at her. "I just hope you're going to be okay."

"Don't worry about me." Jaime said, sounding more confident than she felt.

He hit a switch and the cage jolted to a halt. "This is your floor Ma'am." he said as he opened the cage door and stepped out. They were at the mouth of a large tunnel, dimly lit to a length of about three hundred feet. Tangled above and all around was a massive network of pipes and cables snaking down into the darkness. It was undeniably spooky. She was sweating already.

"This way." Lenny gestured down the tunnel. Jaime took in the strange subterranean world - the close silence of the deep solid earth around them, the dirt smell, the sludge underfoot, the dripping noises, the grumbling pipes, the rust stains pouring down the rough stone walls.

"These are all feeders coming basically from tunnel number one, which was built in '17." he said a minute into their walk. "We've got a lot of leaks." he added as they passed under a fine mist spewing from a pipe above. They turned into a darker secondary tunnel and continued for another fifty feet before turning once more and coming to a halt in front of two large rusty pipes, numbers stenciled on the sides, one at floor level and the other near the ceiling.

"Apparently your guy said it has to be one of these two." Lenny said. "DX 111 or DX 112 - both of them out of commission. Take your pick."

Jaime nodded and pressed her ear to the lower of the two pipes.

"I don't think you're going to be able to hear anything... "

Jaime put her finger to her lips and listened intently for thirty seconds, but she could hear nothing but the sound of air in a contained space. Ascending the ladder to DX 112 she placed her ear against it. Immediately she heard something - unidentifiable, but a sound, nonetheless. Far down the line she was picking up some sense of habitation. She closed her eyes and stopped breathing. Yes - voices - almost out of range, but definitely there.

"This one." she informed Lenny.

"Okay." he replied, looking incredulous. "Climb up top there and move down about ten feet - just past the hatch." Jaime followed his instructions, and straddling the pipe she shifted herself along it down the tunnel, noting that it was unusually clean. Someone else had definitely been up here recently. Lenny followed, stopping just before the hatch.

"This is it." he said. "This is your access point here. Have you got everything you need?"

Banded to her arm was the transponder. She had swimming goggles and most importantly, she had her headlamp.

"I think so."

He worked the hatch open and lifted the lid. "This pipe runs eight hundred horizontal feet. There are two vertical mains coming off it at two and six hundred feet. If you can't get out here, you'll want to get out through one of those. Problem is the valves to those mains are pretty rusty, which is why we don't use this pipe anymore." He gazed at her regretfully. "So... try to get back here."

She nodded, feeling nervous.

"All the valves have internal taps, on the left hand side of the pipes. It's a wheel. You'll see it when you're in there."

Jaime stepped into the pipe, which came up to her mid thigh, and noted the layer of rusty shale beneath her feet. At least it was dry. "I guess I'm going to have to crawl, huh?"

"Oh! Hang on a sec." He climbed down from the pipe and returned a moment later with a small wooden cart that resembled a crude skateboard. "You can roll on your belly. You'll have to lift it over the pipe seams, but it's way faster than crawling. Quieter too."

"Thanks." Jaime said, resisting the urge to stall, "Well... here I go."

"Good luck." Lenny said, offering her an encouraging smile.


	4. Chapter 4

Oscar and Rudy pulled two chairs up to a small computer monitor in the back of the war room.

"This is always the worst part." sighed Rudy. "Sitting around waiting."

"Yeah." agreed Oscar, folding his arms. "It's the story of my life."

"We should have brought a flask."

Oscar smiled at his old friend, grateful for the commiseration, and then he turned his attention to the red dot on the screen. It wasn't moving at the moment. She was probably at the site, just getting ready to set out. To think that little red dot represented all that really mattered to him in life.

He had to work hard to keep himself from imagining her in those pipes, because he could feel the panic begin to beat at his chest when he did so. Instead he thought of her walking down long, bright, spacious hallways, at least fifteen feet wide and fifteen feet tall, nicely ventilated. No matter where he envisioned her though, she was walking away from him, head held high, confident and strong.

-----

Once inside and lying belly down on the skateboard, she gave Lenny permission to close the latch. She lay there for a moment, the light of her headlamp barely illuminating the blackness. The air was stale and smelled of rust and mildew. For one moment she allowed herself to feel the creeping fear and claustrophobia she had kept at bay since Oscar first described the situation. With a sharp, deep breath she shut it out again, and began to move forward, pulling herself along with her hands. This was like a really nasty dirty version of that crazy winter sport - what was that again - the luge? With a small jolt the rubber wheels of the cart lodged into a pipe seam. She pulled herself free with a little lift and a tug and rolled on. After a short time she began to feel a rhythm to her movements - twenty feet of smooth rolling, lift, tug, another twenty feet. Her mind turned to Steve. Would she find him, and if she did, what sort of state was he likely to be in?

The last time she'd seen him he had visited her at the OSI. A few hours every week, mostly on Saturdays, she worked as a kind of coach with Rudy's patients. He and the Hotshot had been refining a neuro-implant technique that returned limited mobility to people with spinal cord injuries, and Jaime was there to bolster their spirits and keep them on track. She was good at it, and she was considering taking some training in physiotherapy to make herself even more useful.

"Hey Pretty Lady, can I buy you lunch?" He said in greeting, bursting through the lab doors at one thirty. "Your husband is tied up and asked me to be his stand-in."

"He's busy? What do you know..." She rolled her eyes and smiled at Steve as she took his arm. "Well you're a terrific stand-in and I would be delighted. And I'm starving."

They drove to his favorite deli, one famous for serving Montreal smoked meat sandwiches. He took the liberty of ordering one each and they arrived in short order, the meat sliced thin and stacked high, with a giant pickle on the side.

"Wow. Meaty." Jaime said, raising her eyebrows. She wasn't the most carnivorous woman in the world, but she decided she would enjoy this, if her jaw would open wide enough to surround it.

Her feelings for Steve were at once simple and complex. Having known him since they were children she had an ease and familiarity with him she shared with no one else in the world. In that regard he was like a brother. On the other hand - as her former fiancé they also shared a painful history. Somewhere in that difficult time when her body rejected bionics her mind rejected him too, closing a big heavy door on her feelings for him. They had assumed her feelings would return - Steve had great hopes - but that love never came back and now she couldn't quite imagine it. He really wasn't her type - the cars, the clothes, the Steve McQueen style machismo, his reputation as a ladies' man - he was flashy, and perhaps her taste for flashiness had left her when she left her twenties. Nonetheless, she was extremely fond of him, and if she were perfectly honest she was not completely immune to his charms.

Conversation was easy and pleasant between them, veering from childhood stories, to horror stories from Rudy's lab, to a shaggy dog story (which took Steve a full 10 minutes to tell), to the daily challenges she faced in her classroom. She found she was talking a lot, and enthusiastically, pleased to have an attentive listener. It suddenly occurred to her that she was telling him the sorts of things she used to tell Oscar, and it hit her hard - she was _lonely_.

As though he had read her mind, he said, "So, uh, how are you and the boss getting along these days?"

"Why do you ask?" she frowned.

"Well, from what I can tell he's back to his old work habits, and I happen to think you don't look as happy as you used to."

"I don't see him very much, it's true." She fiddled with the salt shaker. "I don't know if it's appropriate for us to be talking about this."

"Well, I think maybe it needs to be talked about, because it looks to me like he's being selfish." There was a glimmer of anger in his eyes.

"No." Jaime replied vigorously. "It's not selfishness Steve, it's an over-developed sense of responsibility. Everything is his responsibility - world peace, the country's defense system, Callahan's retirement package - everything. You know that."

"What about his responsibility to you?" He finished his question with a large, fearsome chomp into his sandwich.

"Oh, Steve, he's good to me," She hesitated, a bubble of sadness rising in her chest - and she couldn't quite stop herself from adding, "...when I see him."

"I'm going to bust his head."

"Steve Austin!" Jaime couldn't help but laugh. "You will not bust his head. I'm perfectly capable of busting his head myself. You're supposed to be his friend."

"Not when it comes to you Jaime - you come first, always."

Jaime looked at her plate, away from the intensity of his gaze. "I appreciate that, I do. I'm glad to have you on my side, but you don't need to protect me from Oscar. He's the world's most benign person - and you know it. And he's always there when I need him. Look how incredible he was when Jim died. He was there for all of us."

"Well, that's true. Mom still thinks he's a candidate for sainthood." Steve conceded. "But what's with his psycho workaholic routine? If he had any brains he'd be spending every minute with you."

"Oh, " Jaime sighed. "He's complicated. Honestly after the childhood he had I'm amazed he's as normal as he is."

"You're not going to use the old bad-childhood-card!" Steve guffawed, leaning back in his chair. "That guy hasn't been a child for forty-five years."

"No, really Steve." Jaime insisted, feeling irritated. "Way down deep he _still_ thinks he's a poor second to that mythological brother of his. And his parents thought that too."

"Do you know how long men have been playing women with that lost-little-boy routine?"

"When did you get so cynical?"

Steve leaned forward. "Oscar Goldman is one of the most powerful men in the country and he looks pretty sure of himself to me."

"Well of course - he has to. And if you ever tell him I said this to you," she smiled darkly, "I will hunt you down and kill you."

Steve grinned. He was just about to take another bite when he had a thought. "You were orphaned at sixteen - and you're not all screwed up."

"It's not the same. I was the center of my parent's universe for sixteen years. That makes a big difference."

"Yeah, well, enough about poor old Oscar. What about poor old you?" He continued to bore holes into her with his eyes. "Jaime, do you ever have any fun? You used to like to have fun."

For the life of her she couldn't think of the last time she and Oscar had had fun together, but she felt defensive. "It's not what you think. Don't stop being his friend because of me, okay? I can handle my own marriage. Hey, listen - this cuts both ways, you know. Let's talk about _your_ love life. I'm sure it's a _far_ more exciting topic..."

**  
**

As far as she could tell she had gone perhaps three hundred feet when she heard a noise that caused her heart to jump in her chest. It was a loud tinging noise on the pipe, like someone was banging it with a wrench somewhere behind her - but whether it came from the inside or the outside she couldn't tell. Then, from the other end there was what could only have been a response. Back again, behind her, more banging. It had to be Morse code! If only Oscar were there. So _that's_ how they got around the problem of radio communication. She found herself looking up and down the pipe as the banging continued, staring into the thick darkness as though she might see something relevant. It stopped after a couple of minutes and Jaime held her breath and listened for further noises, and when she was satisfied there was nothing more to come, she rolled forward again.

Push, coast, bump, push, coast, bump - on and on it went. If she wasn't so worried about what lay ahead she would have been bored. She had now passed one of the valves that lead into a vertical pipe. Unfortunately it was easy to identify because the walls underneath it were thickly coated with rust. When she paused at the second valve, six hundred feet later, she aimed her headlamp at the wheel that controlled it. If the pipe flooded and she needed to use that little wheel, would it really work? It certainly didn't look trustworthy. Her heart pulsed harder, and she moved on.

Push, coast, bump, push, coast, bump...and then - finally - in front of her, instead of the eternal darkness, Jaime could see the cap at the end of the pipe. Her heart jumped again. Now the tedium would end, and God knows what would begin in its place. Reaching the end, she found a hatch much like the one she had entered eight hundred feet ago. When she turned the latch, to her horror it made a loud, dry screeching noise, announcing her arrival as noisily as a trumpet fanfare. Oh well, it wasn't like they weren't going to discover her soon enough anyway...

**----**

When Oscar had first met Jaime he was so used to his rigorous, guarded independence it took him some time to allow himself to open up to her in any way. Inch by inch she had worked his way into his soul - so that now he was convinced he could not cope without her.

Frank Lieberman sat down beside Rudy and joined in the observation of the red dot.

As much as he'd tried to talk himself out of it, Oscar had always been haunted by the latent, creeping assumption that one day he would lose her. He wasn't necessarily a pessimistic man, but somehow he knew that one day she was going to come to her senses, or worse - that he would inadvertently kill her on a mission such as this. Right now it seemed like both things were happening at once.

"I feel like we should be _doing_ something." Lieberman said, shifting in his chair. He looked to Oscar. "I hate to ask you this, but...what do you think our chances are?"

Oscar forced himself to look the mayor in the eye. He reminded himself of the number of times Jaime had beat the odds. His mouth was dry and for a moment he wasn't sure his vocal cords would obey him.

"I don't know."

----

She pushed the heavy lid up and away but remained crouched in the pipe, sensing someone close by.

"Well, well, well," said a raspy man's voice in a tone laced with sarcasm. "Another visitor. How nice. Why don't you stand up and introduce yourself?"

Instinct told her to remove the transponder. Quietly, she slipped it off and raised her arms, "Just don't blow my head off, okay?"

"A woman?!" 

Filled with trepidation, Jaime slowly raised her head. Directly in front of her, approximately four feet away, was a wooden wall, and small open hatch. There, poking his head out, looking at her agape, was a square shaped middle aged man with a shock of dusty red hair. He was pointing a gun at her.

"Yup." she said slowly.

"What the hell are you doing down here? You look like a school teacher." He turned and spoke to someone behind him."Boys - a school teacher has come down the pipe." Then he looked back to Jaime, still wearing an expression of amazement.

"Actually," she laughed nervously. "That was a good guess. I am a schoolteacher."

"Really." he replied, his expression hardening. He waved the gun at her. "You better get over here. Just hang on. We don't want you getting all messed up like that other nincompoop." Jaime stood up and took in her surroundings. DX-112 terminated dead in the center of a damp rocky cave. The floor was concrete, wet, bristling with long re-bar spikes. This chamber was perhaps an airlock of some kind, as there was an open pipe near the floor that looked like a drain.

The man fished around behind him and produced a long stick with a hook on the end. Reaching out, he hooked it over something on the underside of the pipe and pulled hard. A narrow wooden platform extended outward from the pipe, and he lifted the end of it up over the lip of the hatch.

"Get in here."

Jaime obeyed, crawling carefully across the platform, through the hatch and down into the small room. It was dark inside, lit only by three lanterns. Before anything else, it was the sight of Steve that gripped her. He was alive! He was lying on the floor, propped up on one elbow, looking at her guardedly. Immediately after her initial relief she realized there was something wrong beyond the obvious exhaustion written on his face. The way he was lying there - his legs looked weirdly flaccid. A skinny young man sat on the floor a few feet away, intently aiming a gun at Steve's head.

"Oh, Steve..." she cried, and threw herself down beside him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Oh..." said the middle aged man in a light tone. "So you know our little wind-up friend. We've been looking for the key in his back all day but we just can't find it." He sat down on a crate. "Now, Teach, maybe you'd like to tell me who you are and what you're doing here."

Jaime pulled back from the embrace, keeping one arm protectively around Steve's shoulder. The room was crudely fashioned out of narrow boards - anything that would fit through a pipe. She could see bits of thick black plastic poking out at the corners - an attempt at waterproofing. It didn't look as though it would be terribly effective, but the room was dry. On the back wall was an electronic panel, which Jaime assumed was the timer for the bomb. There was no sign of the dynamite.

When she slipped that transponder off, she had already decided to lie. Her instinct was that if she told them she was here on behalf of the federal government it wouldn't go down too well. On the other hand, any lie was liable to seem preposterous. "I came here to find him. He's my husband."

"Oh really?" the older man asked incredulously. "What devotion. And it wasn't the mayor who sent you down here...?"

"No. I promise." replied Jaime. "Steve told me all about what he was doing on this job, and when he didn't come home I got worried. The mayor didn't want anyone coming down so I had to take matters into my own hands. See?" she added, showing him her left hand. "Wedding ring."

The man nodded slowly, his small eyes narrowed to slits. Not surprisingly, he looked like he didn't quite believe her. "So you just strolled on down here, like you were gonna bring him home from the bar."

"I'm a spelunker." Jaime answered firmly. "I'm good at this kind of thing." Inwardly she cringed. Had she really just said she that?

"A what?" the younger man guffawed.

"A spelunker." she said again, as though she really meant it. "I like to explore caves. It's a lot like crawling around in pipes."

"You're cute. I'll give you that." the older man said. Jaime felt mildly surprised at the fact that she didn't find this man particularly menacing. In fact, under different circumstances she thought she might even have liked him. An odd smile crossed his face."So did you know that your husband is made up of old radio parts?"

"Of course she knows." Steve said, saving Jaime the trouble of trying to guess the correct answer.

"That's a hell of a thing. His legs must be more valuable than Betty Grable's. So are you a government agent too?"

"No." Jaime replied. "I told you - I'm a school teacher. I mean - look at me." There was no denying that she didn't look much like a government agent. At forty years old, wearing filthy jeans and blouse, she looked like she'd just spent the day in the garden. "If I were coming down here to get you, you'd think I would have at least brought a gun or something."

"Maybe. Well, you two just make yourselves comfortable and don't move. We don't want my boy to have to shoot you, after all. It's likely to upset him."

Jaime looked to the young man. Now she saw the resemblance - he was like a narrow version of his father, though his hair was not that same bright red. He glowered at her.

It was a position Jaime had been in more times than she could remember - staring down the wrong end of a gun. They just sat there, the minutes ticking by - Steve and Jaime observing father and son, and father and son observing them. She was feeling twitchy - she just wanted to get this thing over with - no matter which way it might turn out.

"Are we waiting for something?" She finally blurted.

"As a matter of fact, yes." replied the father. "We're waiting for word."

"Word about what?"

"Mind your own business." the older man said irritably. "While we're being nosy, why don't you tell me how you like being married to a hunk of machinery?"

"Well, it's the hunk part that counts."

The older man barked out a laugh.

"Do you mind if I catch up with him a little?" Jaime asked, cocking her head to Steve.

"Be my guest."

"Are you okay?" she asked, squeezing Steve's shoulder.

He looked chagrined. "I jumped on to that re-bar out there. It was under water and I didn't notice it. I kind of ...short circuited."

"We were kinda surprised to see smoke coming out of his feet. That booby trap was my idea. Works pretty good." said the younger man with pride.

Suddenly there was a noise from the airlock that made everyone jump - the same metallic banging Jaime had heard earlier.

"Shh!" commanded the older man. The bangs continued and his face lit up. "They dropped the cash!" he shouted gleefully to his son. He opened the hatch and grabbed the pole with the hook on it. They heard him bang out a response and he pulled the pole back into the room and closed the hatch.

"Time to get out of here, Mikey." he said to his son, and turning to Steve and Jaime he added, "I wish you hadn't shown up Teach, because I gotta blow this thing."

"What?" cried Jaime. "But you have your money! Why?"

"The mayor's office sent you, sure as I'm looking at you. Doesn't matter really. We were always going to blow it anyway."

Why?!" she demanded.

"Oh, let's not get into that." he replied, waving his gun dismissively as he moved toward the timer. "Ol' Shortwave here has been working on us for two days now. I'm getting kinda sick of it."

"People are going to die!' she insisted. "A lot more people than Steve and me. You think your conscience is going to disappear when you're sitting on a big pile of money?"

"Never have so many depended on so few," he said, quoting Churchill, and then added, "and not appreciated it and had to pay a price."

"What are you talking about?"

"My brother died down here last year." Mike said quietly. "My great grandpa died working on the Brooklyn bridge. You know that nobody even knows we exist? We got laid off for three years for one thing, and now we're not allowed to strike. The pay is lousy and my brother's wife has got two kids, no husband and the city isn't looking after her right. I guess you could say we're kind of pissed off."

"It's time everybody understood what we've done for this town." said his father, pushing the button to start the timer. _Fifteen minutes_, announced the read out.

"But what about the other sandhogs? You're betraying them!"

"The way I look at it I'm saving the poor bastards from a pitiful early death eight hundred feet down."

Steve tugged at her elbow, trying to stop her from pushing them. Jaime was too shocked and too angry to notice. "You're making a mockery of everything you've worked so hard for - and what your son died for!"

"Good thing I thought of all the angles." he said, ignoring her remark and picking up a metal plate from the floor. He placed it over the timing mechanism and bolted it tightly at each corner. He placed the wrench in his pants pocket and smiled, "That ought to stop you little lovebirds from messing with it."

"Okay, Mike, let's go. Oh..." he added, plucking Jaime's headlamp from her head, "I'll take that, thank you very much." Mike collected the lanterns and squeezed out of the hatch first, while his father kept his gun trained on Jaime and Steve. As he backed out of the hole, the glint of the gun became the last thing Jaime could see.

"Don't even think about following us because I will kill you." He regarded them a moment, the corners of his mouth pulling down. "I'm sorry." He grabbed the hatch and slammed it shut.


	5. Chapter 5

Oscar, Rudy, and Frank Lieberman sat together in a cluster of silent anxiety. Lieberman's hands were clasped together tightly, his knuckles dead white.

"The drop was made five minutes ago." Jack Hansen said casually, leaning against the side of the big computer. "We're tailing the money. So far, so good."

"Who picked it up?" the mayor asked.

"A young woman, now heading upstate by car."

"Good work Jack." Oscar replied, without enthusiasm. The dot had not moved at all for minutes. An icy nausea afflicted him. Perhaps if he just sat very still, maybe it would go away.

"Oscar? Are you all right?" Rudy asked.

"Yeah."

Why wouldn't that damned red dot move?

When was the last time he had done something really nice for Jaime - something that would indicate to her how much he loved and needed her? Though he wracked his brain, hoping to relieve the guilt that was kicking at him, he couldn't remember. This last six months had been nothing but dashing home for an hour, kissing her on the cheek and dashing back to the office. Often when he came home she was asleep. Why did she stay? What had he done to deserve her?

One thing was clear - they couldn't go on like this. Sooner or later he was going to push her to the limits of her love for him, and she would leave - if she lived.

The nausea twisted his stomach. He rubbed his face roughly with his hands.

Rudy leaned very close to him. "Are you sitting there reliving every mistake you've ever made in your marriage?"

"Something like that."

"Do you want me to give you something? Take the edge off the anxiety?"

Oscar shook his head. "This is my life Rudy. It has a lot of edges."

---

They waited until they heard the telltale screech of the pipe hatch closing and then they moved into action. Jaime unceremoniously grabbed Steve under the armpits and dragged him through the dark room to where she thought the bomb control panel was.

"I'm counting on you here, Steve. I can't see a darned thing." Jaime grunted.

"Sure thing." he replied, grateful that his bionic eye was in full working order. "Just set me down - a little to the left. I'll sit on that crate." She heard him ease down, followed immediately by the sound of him undoing bolts at super speed. "Okay, I'm taking that metal cover off." he reported. Suddenly the readout was visible, glowing in the darkness. _Six minutes, twenty-two seconds. _"I hoping this isn't going to be too complicated...I can't see colors too well without light. I'm going to unscrew the face plate on the control panel."

She watched the readout wobble as he lifted the panel into the air. It held steady there as he studied the inner workings of the timer mechanism.

"Easy-peasy." he said. "Just the two wires to worry about."

"Really?" Jaime asked anxiously. "Are you sure?" _Five minutes, four seconds._

He shot her a look that she couldn't see, but her anxiety was enough to cause him to reconsider his assessment.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed with a laugh on second inspection. "Good thing I've got you here. I guess I'm a little off my game. Those guys weren't too generous with the rations." He turned his attention from the back of the panel to the guts of the mechanism. "Okay, I think I've got it right this time. Here goes." Jaime heard a little snap. The timer continued to move - another snap - and to her immense relief it stopped. _Four minutes, twenty one seconds._

"Done." he said with satisfaction.

"Nice work, partner. What do you say we mess this thing up a bit so they can't come back and start it up again?"

"Good idea." Steve replied, guiding her hand to one end of the face plate. "Okay - twist." he instructed and instantly the flat metal plate became a tidy spiral. He then reached into the mechanism and began randomly breaking parts.

"Great. Let's get out of here."

"Amen to that. Unfortunately I'm not much more useful than a sack of potatoes, so I hope you don't mind lugging me. My legs are pretty badly screwed up."

"Well at least you can see." she replied, once again firmly grasping him under the armpits and dragging him in the direction of the hatch.

"I'm glad nobody can see this." he replied ruefully.

"Are we there?"

"Yup, just a foot to your left."

Holding Steve up with her right arm, she pawed the wall until she discovered the hatch and opened it. Steve then neatly pulled himself up onto the narrow wooden gangplank and dragged himself across to the pipe.

Jaime gingerly followed, leaving the hatch open behind her.

"Steve, where is the dynamite?"

"Directly behind us. Right behind the back wall of the room there."

She slowly crossed the wobbly little plank, ever conscious of the spikes sticking up from the ground below. As she climbed up to straddle the pipe behind Steve her heart skipped.

"Steve - the pipe is flooded." she gasped. "They must have flooded it!"

"You sure?"

"No question." Her ear could easily distinguish the sound of fullness from the sound of hollowness. "Well, okay." she said, trying to quickly regroup. You're just going to have to hang on to me and I'll swim like a bat out of hell. I can probably hear it when we get to those vertical uptakes - but let me know - tap me or something, when you see one, okay?"

"Yup." They were silent for a moment, each feeling the fear of the other. "So, uh, I guess we'll have to open this hatch and let the room flood before we try getting in there. We don't want to be swimming against the current."

"Right." Jaime replied with a sharp nod. "Sh - shall we open it?"

**----  
**

The mayor was now on the telephone with the governor, apparently disagreeing on evacuation plans. Assistants were rushing everywhere and the phones were ringing constantly. Oscar had some sense of the anxious bustle around him, but his mind had now almost closed itself completely to everything but Jaime. Her life and his life went together. If she lived, he lived. He couldn't take his eyes off the the dot - willing it to move.

Everyone went silent as the clock ticked over to five. Then, five o' one... five o' two.

The phone rang, and the chief of police snatched it up.

"Yes?...Good! Good. Keep me informed." He looked up, cautious relief lighting his face. "No explosion!"

Lieberman clamped his hand excitedly on Oscar's shoulder.

"I think she just might have pulled it off!"

Oscar nodded absently, his mind five hundred feet underground, in a dark pipe, barely wide enough to squeeze through.

---- 

"Here goes." Steve said, as he opened the screeching hatch. Instantly a geyser of water blasted up to the ceiling and rained down violently upon them. They both hunched down and clung onto the pipe, fearing being knocked off completely. It filled quickly. As the water rose to waist level they eased away from the pipe and paddled, rising on the tide to the top of the chamber.

"You okay?" Jaime asked, as Steve treaded water using only his arms.

"Fine."

"Did you get the names of those men by the way?"

"No." replied Steve. "You know as much as I do - they're father and son and the kid's name is Mike."

"Okay. I guess there's going to be a lot of wet dynamite in here."

"Yeah. Probably not a bad thing. We're almost up to the ceiling. Couple more feet."

They should dive soon, Jaime thought, and just then she felt Steve kiss her fully on the lips. Though she was startled at first, she had to admit to herself it was a welcome sensation.

"Just in case anything happens." he said, "I just want you to know, to me, you'll always be my girl."

Jaime was moved by the gesture, but struggled to know what to say in return.

"Let's go." Steve said, saving her the trouble. She turned her back to him and he put one arm over her shoulder and the other under her other arm and clasped his hands together.

"Ready?" she asked, kicking hard to keep both their heads above water. "Are we near the pipe?"

"Right above it."

"Okay, here we go..."

"Here we go..." Steve repeated, and they each took a very, very, deep breath and dropped below the surface.

Jaime stopped kicking, and they drifted downward. Her feet hit the top of the pipe almost immediately. Steve let go of her and slipped into the inside, grabbing her hand and guiding her down as he went. She fumbled her way through the hatch and then struggled and bumped against him as they lined themselves up with the pipe. Steve hugged himself to Jaime's back, and kicking with all her might she propelled them forward - into the deep, terrifying blackness. They moved at a furious pace, the water pushing hard against them. With Steve as added cargo, she was all that much more aware of the confined space of the pipe - and being an unbalanced load she kept veering downward. He held her tight with one arm, and with the other guided them along so they wouldn't scrape the bottom. Despite his navigation she received numerous hard bumps to her head and shoulders as they veered around in the pipe.

She felt him tap her shoulder, and she slowed and listened. The wonder of her ear was that she could hear the most amazingly subtle sounds - in this case the water swirling quietly around the valve mechanism - and better yet, the hollow tune of the uptake pipe. She waved her arms and by sheer luck felt the wheel under her hand. She quickly grasped it, and sensing Steve's hand next to her own, gave a mighty twist to the left. The wheel immediately snapped off in their hands. She was so shocked she exhaled, wasting a precious mouthful of oxygen. They could try to work the valve open manually, or they could try for the next one - four hundred feet away. She had only seconds to make a decision. _Keep going_. She pointed forward, hoping Steve would see and understand her. He immediately put his arms around her and they blasted off again. Though their underwater journey had taken no more than thirty seconds, to Jaime it had been forever. Her lungs were starting to burn and despite her best efforts fear was shimmering in her belly. _Think of other things_, she told herself.

----

"Aa?" Oscar demanded incredulously, leaning over the Scrabble board. "What's "aa"? That's not a word."

"Yes it is. I can't remember what it means right now, but it's a word." Jaime folded her arms defiantly and leaned back into the couch.

He shook his head. "It's an acronym for _Alcoholics Anonymous_, which is an organization I'll have to join to deal with the drinking problem I'm going to develop if you keep cheating at Scrabble."

Her mouth dropped at the accusation.

"Cheating?! Them's fightin' words, buster." She waved her fists at him like a bantam weight boxer.

"You're a dirty rotten little cheater." His eyes narrowed and without warning he lunged from his chair, pushed her over and sat on her.

"Agh!" she cried, suffering under the full weight of his 190 pounds. "Get off me, you... you ... masher!" she laughed breathlessly.

"I just can't take it anymore." he exclaimed, jamming his fingers into her ribs.

"NO!" she squealed, writhing as he tickled her. "Stop it! Oscar! I just remembered! It's...ack! A word for...don't!! Lava! Noooo! You're gonna get it!" It was when he made a move for her armpit that she lost it completely and bucked him off so violently that he did a dramatic face plant on the opposite arm of the couch. He made a kind of an "oof" sound, then lay motionless, sprawled out, long limbs everywhere. For a moment she was almost worried. Almost. She ran her hand up to just under his ribcage and she squeezed twice. Instantly he jackknifed, flipped over and grabbed her hands.

"Oh, Baby..." she giggled regretfully when she saw his glasses - bent out of recognition, sitting at a jaunty angle on his face.

He wore an expression of abused dignity. He pushed his glasses up, which did nothing to correct their position at all, and in a huffy tone said, "Well, all right. I'll let you have it this time - but just this once."

----

Suddenly the red dot shot upward, and Oscar's heart shot up with it. Then it seemed to drift down, eventually coming to a halt. Somehow it didn't look like conscious movement.

Though the phones were still ringing, the general atmosphere in the room had improved considerably. With the tension released, people were starting to chat and help themselves to coffee.

Leiberman and Souski simultaneously broke from a small conference on the other side of the room and reluctantly approached the two OSI men.

"Um, gentlemen, we just received word that the pipe Jaime was in is flooded." Lieberman said quietly.

Oscar and Rudy turned to him and stared, neither wanting to comprehend. Oscar stood.

"I need to get down to that first uptake." All eyes turned to him, pity written in all of them - except for Rudy, who nodded and stood with him.

"Of course." the mayor said kindly. "Escort please, Bob." he said to the police chief. "Chuck, you go with him."

"But she was going to come out of the end of that horizontal pipe. I don't know if she could even get through those uptake valves." Chuck protested, scratching his head anxiously, causing a cloud of dust to rise from his hair.

"Well, humor me." Oscar demanded.


	6. Chapter 6

Now her lungs were insistent and panic was beating at the back of her brain. She felt the tap on the shoulder from Steve and slowed, listening for the valve. There it was. This time Steve took her hand and immediately placed it on the wheel. They paused less than a second, and with fear and hope and desperation - they turned. It was stiff at first, but then, to her immeasurable delight and relief, she could feel it turning - and hear it too - screeching. As they forced it on its clockwise journey they became aware of an insistent suck toward the huge valve. When finally the wheel had gone as far as possible they both submitted to the pull, Steve first and then Jaime, each slamming into the valve, then maneuvering through the circular opening and into the elbow of the uptake pipe. She was grateful for the inexorable upward push, as otherwise she would have been completely disoriented by numerous somersaults. She banged into Steve several times before grabbing at him, first a foot, then his head, then she fumbled till she had him around the waist and she kicked furiously upward. At last they bobbed to the surface of the rising water, gasping wildly for air. In his panic for oxygen Steve breathed in mouthful of water and coughed violently. Up and up they rose, pushed by the jet-like surge underneath them. Would this take them right to the surface, she wondered? And if it did, was there yet another rusty hatch to deal with? Suddenly she felt them being pulled hard to the left and slammed into the wall of the pipe. Against her back was a two foot opening - presumably a horizontal pipe. Though there was no danger of being sucked in, they were pinned, water rushing past them as it siphoned off, ending their ride upwards.

-----

"How often is this outlet used?" Oscar demanded, studying the rusty mechanism, trying hard to suppress the anxiety shuddering through his body.

"Not that much. Actually the one just north of here we use a lot more."

"Open it." Oscar ordered, his voice uneven. Now his entire being was rattling mercilessly. "Why the hell is it chained up anyway? We knew she might come up here."

"Look, Mr Goodman," Chuck said kindly, "I know it's your wife and everything, and I feel terrible for you, but the transponder..."

"Transponders come off! Just open it!" Now he was yelling and sweating and shaking and knew he must look like a madman. He felt like a madman.

"For God's sake!" Rudy bellowed in support.

Chuck relented. He took a large key from his pocket and undid the giant lock on the enormous chains on the valve control. As he turned the wheel a sharp spray of water shot up and became a thick fountain about four feet high. Water burbled up and flowed by the gallon, but there was no sign of Jaime.

"She's not there." Oscar turned to Rudy, his eyes wild. A horrible vision sprang to mind - Jaime's body caught at a valve, lifeless, wafting in the current. "They're not there." He turned to Chuck. "Where's the next outlet?"

"Two and a half blocks north - but she couldn't have..."

Oscar checked his watch. It was four minutes past five. "That key work on the lock up there?" Oscar asked, eying traffic, assessing the fastest means of travel.

The word "Yeah." was no sooner out of Chuck's mouth when Oscar snatched the key from him, sprinted up the access stairs and disappeared, followed by Rudy and two very surprised policemen.

"Hey!" Chuck bellowed, breaking into a run.

---

"Now what do we do?" Jaime asked, almost to herself.

"There's a service ladder." Steve croaked, still recovering. "Over this way." He pulled her to the left and she found the rungs almost immediately.

"I can climb on my own, Jaime." he said.

"I think I'd feel better if you just hung on to me. I've got those handy bionic legs working for me."

"Okay." he conceded.

Slowly she began to climb upward, Steve hanging doggedly from her back. As she gained confidence at intuiting where the next rung was, she gained speed. There was just one problem. The bionic limbs could handle the load just fine, but there was no escaping the fact that she needed to use her left arm while her right reached up for the next rung. She was fit enough, but an added two hundred pounds was a challenge for even the most fit arm. Quickly she began to tire, and she compensated by moving her right arm faster, relieving the left more quickly.

"Great work, Jaime." Steve murmured over her shoulder.

"Thanks." she panted. "Can you see the top?"

He didn't answer for a moment.

"Not really."

Now she was out of breath from exertion, but exhaustion was something she would not and could not think about. This darkness was making her half crazy, making her want to beat against it, flail and scream for all she was worth, to bully the light back into it.

---

She was bent over the cutting board chopping ginger when the lights snapped out, and where there had been her hands, the knife, and a pile of yellow chunks - there was only blackness and the strong fragrance of the ginger.

"Jaime?" His voice called from the other end of the house, edged with concern. Then she heard an ominous thumping noise.

"Bup, are you all right?" she called back, waving her hands in front of her as she sought the kitchen entrance. The house that was so familiar to her was suddenly a complete stranger. She found the door jamb and listened for his response. There were a couple of grunts, followed by a rueful laugh.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just tripped over a chair."

Cautiously she shuffled into the living room, bumping a small table by the couch, causing the lamp to topple over and the bulb to burst.

"Damn."

"Oh, go ahead." Oscar called from the hallway. "Trash the place."

She laughed as she worked her way toward the windows, running her hand across the back of the couch for guidance. Although it seemed harmless, there was cause for concern - if their house was the only one in darkness things were likely about to get ugly. Jaime's stomach did its customary back flip.

Finally she felt the curtain fabric, and fumbled till she found the edge. Opening it just half an inch, she breathed a sigh of relief at the view. Their entire neighborhood was drenched in blackness, while in rest of the metropolis was a patchwork of diamond lights and absolute dark.

"Garden variety power outage, Bup." She called. The hand on her back startled her, and she involuntarily let out a little scream.

"Nervous?" he asked her in a rumbling, creepy tone.

"Shut up." she replied, half sulky, half affectionate. She swept the curtain open and a dim light filled the room.

"Well, that's a relief." he sighed.

"Yeah, except that my dinner plans are all messed up."

"Oh dear, what are we going to do?" He turned her around by the shoulders and put one arm around her waist, took her hand and pressed his cheek to hers. He began to shuffle gently toward the center of the room, dancing to inaudible music - that is, theoretically they were dancing, but it reminded Jaime of the slow dances in high school, where the main aim was to be as close as possible to your partner and the music was completely secondary.

Then to her amazement, he began to sing. They had been married four years and she had only heard him sing once or twice, despite her encouragement.

_Bésame...besame mucho_

_Como si fuera seta noche_

_La ultima vez ..._

He had a pretty good singing voice and somehow it was particularly heart melting when he wasn't quite on key. She smiled as he struggled valiantly to reach the highest notes, his eyebrows raised, neck elongated. He sang the entire song, and most impressively, he sang it in Spanish.

_Besame mucho_... she was pretty sure it meant 'kiss me a lot', or something to that effect, and the moment he stopped singing, she did.

One thing lead to another and when the lights finally came on three hours later, their clothes were lying in a heap on the living room floor and they blinked and covered their eyes, nestled together on the couch under a blanket. Their dinner, just finished, had consisted of raw carrots, bread and butter, and wine.

---

Up they climbed, Jaime moving as quickly as possible without overtaxing her arm. It was never going to end - that much was sure.

"I gotta tell you Jaime, " Steve said quietly, "if I were your husband I wouldn't have let you come down here."

_...which just may be one of the reasons I didn't marry you... _Jaime thought to herself, but she didn't have the breath to spare for argument. .  
"This is not the time..." she panted.

A sort of rushing, roaring noise reached her ears from below, and she filled her with dread.

"More water!" Steve muttered. "It's coming up at us."

"Oh, sh - " Jaime cried just as they were overtaken. She was yanked from the ladder by a harsh buffeting surge. The water was a cold assault. Afraid they would be slammed into the hatch at the top of the pipe, she reached up with her bionic arm and braced herself. She felt the staccato rhythm of one foot hitting the rungs of the ladder like a stick on a picket fence - they were indeed moving very fast. She would have given in to tears, but they were so redundant in all that water. Once again she held her breath, and her lungs began to ache almost immediately. She felt Steve shift position on her back, letting go with one arm, just as they hit the pipe cap with a powerful thud. For some precious seconds they were helpless, pinned there, the outside world - air, light, love, comfort - just an inch or two away. Now that the water had no further to go, the surging stopped and calmed and they were drawn gently downward, allowing them to seek out the all important wheel. Jaime began her blind fumble, waiting and hoping for Steve's hands to guide her to the means of their release. It seemed to take him a long time... or was it that time was slowing? Finally she felt him grip her wrists, and then the cold metal under her hands. Hanging there in the close black waters, cold and exhausted, two very desperate, very strong people cranked leftward with what was left of everything they had. It meant no less than everything to them - the difference between life and death. Jaime gritted her teeth. Nothing happened.


	7. Chapter 7

Oscar sprinted the two and a half blocks along the Hudson River pathway faster than he had run in his life, leaving Rudy and assorted followers behind him. Still at a breakneck pace he stumbled down the access stairs four at a time. He was reaching into his breast pocket to pull out his identification when he was tackled by the two policemen guarding the outlet.

"NO! Let me go!" he raged, thrashing wildly as they grappled him down onto the rocky ground. "We have to open that outlet!"

The punch that jolted his head hard into the dirt caused the world to swim and darken in front of him, and he tried to resist, tried hard to pull himself back to consciousness. If he passed out he would fail her. She would die down there. Drown in that cold, dark, close place.

------

She was so weak - bionics were great, but if the human behind them failed, they failed too. She gripped the wheel again and tried to turn it - again nothing happened. If this one broke like the last, she wasn't sure she had it in her to wrestle the valve open. Her screaming lungs seemed to take over her entire body, every inch shrieking for oxygen, her heart bursting, slamming into her breast bone. She felt Steve's hand next to hers. Together, surely they could do this - they were so _close_. It would be so easy on dry land with a lung full of air and something to brace against. She pushed herself into the task, wrenching with all her might, but it wasn't enough. It simply would not budge. Suddenly the panic diminished a little, as did the pain. The screaming got a little quieter. She felt herself letting go.

----

It was a fresh late summer morning along the Oregon coast, the fog just beginning to lift, transforming the landscape from a blanket of white to blues, grays and greens. Jaime was driving the winding road, taking her time, while Oscar slouched comfortably in the seat beside her, one arm thrown over the seat, and the other hanging out the open window. They loved taking road trips together. They got up late, drove only as far as they felt like going, stopping at every diversion they wanted to, drank good wine, ate too much, read a lot, and just generally enjoyed hanging around together.

"Okay Bup, five words." she announced. It was a game they played, where one would try to guess what the other was thinking, using the exact wordage.

He looked at her thoughtfully. "That. Hotel. Was. A. Hellhole." He used his left hand as a counter, raising a finger for each word.

"I thought it was nice." she replied, a little shocked. "Did you think it was a hole?"

He shook his head and smiled. "Not really. Just getting warmed up."

"Keep trying."

"You. Love. Me..." He squinted as he figured out his next two words. "Quite. Madly."

"Quite true." she smiled. "And quite wrong."

"Hmm." he frowned. "You. Wish. I. Was. More. Perceptive?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Nope."

"Are. You. Ready. For. Lunch?"

"Bingo!" she cried, slapping the steering wheel. "So are you?"

"Babe we only ate..." he checked his watch, "...an hour and a half ago. Where do you put it all?"

"Hollow legs."

He stroked the back of her head and neck and pulled her earlobe. She smiled at him and noted for the second time that morning that he looked wistful.

"What's up?" she asked. "You look sad."

"I'm happy. Actually I'm ecstatically happy, which then always makes me a little sad."

"Well, what's the sad part?"

"Oh..." He shook his head. "it's nothing. You'll think I'm a putz."

"I will not think you're a putz."

He looked out at the green blue ocean as it pushed back and forth against the shore, white foam eddying around the great jutting black rocks of the coastline.

"I was just thinking about one of my Dad's lines, which he said more and more as he got older - especially after my mother died. He'd say, "Son, whatever you love in life, whatever means something to you, someday you will lose it. You always have to say goodbye. Don't you _ever_ forget that.""

She had long ago come to the conclusion that Oscar's father was a pill. "And what were you supposed to do with that little morsel of wisdom?"

"I don't know. Protect myself? Make sure I never loved anyone or anything?" he shrugged, frowning. "But, uh, moments like this, when life is perfect, I always hear him." He drummed the dashboard with open hands to distract himself from his own conclusions. "And someday, Babe, we're going to have to say goodbye. It's true - just as sure as we said hello - and I..." He halted. "...hate that."

"Sweetheart, there's going to be a lot of great stuff before we get there. Unless I drive the car off the road. " She smiled at him. Fundamentally, he was in a good mood, so she decided to take the risk. "Don't be such a putz."

----

"NO!" her mind screamed out, her eyes snapping open in the dark water. 'Not today - ' she raged to herself, ' we will NOT be saying goodbye today."

The pain and panic were gone, leaving only absolute determination. She could feel Steve next to her, flailing weakly, like a fish on a line. Bracing her feet on the ladder, she grasped the wheel and turned with everything she had.

**----  
**

Oscar had no idea what was going on but suddenly more policemen were there and he was being pulled to his feet. Chuck was dusting him off and apologies were being made. Then a loud metallic snap drew all attention to the outlet. The big chain snaked away from the wheel, jerked and dropped to the ground. The wheel was now turning itself.


	8. Chapter 8

Jaime's eyes were screwed tightly closed, so she didn't see the daylight opening above her like a new moon in the sky. She felt herself being pushed upwards, her head bumping the valve as it opened. Then everything was blindingly bright. Held aloft momentarily on a big rush of water, then dropped unceremoniously onto the sodden earth, she opened her eyes and blinked. For a fraction of a second she thought maybe she didn't even need to breathe anymore - there was a perfect stillness in her body - but then it began. Her starved lungs began to pull in the air in huge, painful gulps, a loud croaking gasp emanating from her constricted throat. She fought through the agony, twisting around to look for Steve. She blinked in disbelief - it looked as though Rudy was with him, but it was hard to see through the veil of water in her eyes. She blinked again and there was a face above her and before her conscious mind realized it, her arms shot out, reaching for him. Then he was on his knees, gathering her to him, propping her up.

"Breathe, Babe." Oscar commanded softly, his lips next to her ear. "That's all you've got to do now." She clutched at him, pulling him as close as she could stand while her body grasped at the air.

"Don't let me go." she gasped after a full minute of agonizing, heaving breaths. Even through her own distress she could tell Oscar was winded and shaky.

"I won't Babe." he soothed. "Shhhh, just breathe."

She gasped and clung to him. "Don't ever let me go." she croaked, clasping him closer.

"Never, Babe." he murmured, kissing her face over and over again.

"We did it - no bomb."

"Thank God." Oscar sighed.

"Two sandhogs... father and son... father redhead...son Michael...lost a brother last year..." Now that oxygen was flowing in her blood, she had the luxury of noting how incredibly cold she was, and how violently she was shaking.

"Okay, that's enough, now. Just take it easy." Oscar gestured to Russ and repeated the information.

"You're a genius, Jaime." Russ grinned, and turned to speak to a policeman.

Oscar looked at his beloved wife and held her shuddering body close. Someone had thrown a blanket over them both. She was now breathing as though she'd just run the hundred yard dash, still clinging to him tightly. He pushed the wet hair from her face and stroked her cheek, his heart flooded by gratitude. She was here. She was alive.

When Steve was able to think about anything other than breathing, he wiped the water from his eyes and took a look around. Rudy was crouched over him, saying something he couldn't really hear over his own shivering. Instead he focussed his attention on Jaime and Oscar, who he could see in the triangle of space formed under Rudy's arm. Jaime was hanging onto Oscar like he was a life raft in a hurricane, her body heaving violently. Oscar was soaked and muddy, holding her tight, his face screwed up in what you'd have to call an agony of relief. Steve had to admit there wasn't any doubt the big dope loved her. What an irony that Oscar, who had often expressed envy at Steve's prowess with women, should end up marrying Steve's favorite girl. He sighed. Well, the truth was he was pretty much over it - had been for a few years now. Probably in about a week Oscar and Jaime would have him over for dinner, he would have a very pleasant time with them, and he would admit to himself that they were happy together, and then he would leave at the end of the evening feeling quite sure his life was better this way. The thought of years of domestic routines disturbed him. There was a lot of adventure to be had in life.

"A red headed father and a son named Michael. Lost another brother last year. Ring any bells?" Russ said, approaching Chuck Souski.

Souski's face fell. "Oh God... that has to be the O'Dwyers. I've worked with Mel for twenty five years. He's a good man. Oh _no_..."

**----**

At last there was order in the world. She was in a sumptuous, dimly lit bathroom, up to her neck in hot water and bubbles in a sumptuous, deep, old fashioned bathtub, in a sumptuous old hotel. Best of all, her life was not in peril. Jaime sighed contentedly and closed her eyes.

She could hear Oscar outside the door, speaking authoritatively into the telephone. "Russ, tell the mayor that Jaime would love to receive his thanks but it will have to wait till tomorrow. Okay? Thanks." he paused. "No, I'm unavailable too. Tomorrow Russ. "

The telephone clicked into the cradle, and Oscar poked his head into the room.

"Red or white?"

"Red please." she smiled.

He returned a few moments later wearing pyjamas, holding two glasses of red wine. He handed one to her, and lowered himself to the floor, next to the tub. Leaning against the wall, he lifted his glass in a silent toast, and Jaime clinked her glass against his.

"Going to join me?" she asked languidly.

"No way." he replied firmly, with a smile. "Last time we did that we woke up two hours later totally pruney. I'm here to make sure you get into bed, where you belong." Jaime loved it when he took control of her well being after an ordeal such as this. It was a good thing, too, because she was feeling gelatinous in both body and mind.

"Haven't you had enough water for one day?"

"You'd think, wouldn't you? I'm reaping the fruits of my labors." She savored her first sip of wine. "How come I couldn't have a nice normal husband, where helping him out at the office meant staying late to count inventory once a year?"

Oscar grinned. "That cuts two ways you know - I could have had a wife who would tell me to go to hell if I asked her to go explore the waterworks system of New York City."

"Touché."

"So you want to hear the latest?" He didn't wait for her response, because he knew she did. "Half an hour ago they picked up Michael and Mel O'Dwyer in Yonkers. Looks like they were headed upstate. With them was Mel's wife Megan, who has an Irish accent. It's pretty clear she made the original call to the mayor. The money is back in the hands of the city, after Jack's men took it from one Tricia O'Dwyer - widow of Patrick, son of Mel."

"Wow."Jaime said quietly, with a frown. "The whole family. There's something kind of sad about that."

"Yeah. I thought so too. It seems so desperate. But I'm just so glad that we - you - stopped them." He gazed at her affectionately. "Everyone is falling all over themselves to thank you for what you did - the Mayor, the Governor, the Secretary, even Jack, in his own special way, is pretty impressed. And I'm the most impressed of all. That may be the bravest thing you've ever done."

She held her hand out to him. "Thanks pal." she said. "That means a lot to me." She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. "And you - you really treated me like a colleague today. No mother hen routine at all."

"Well," he said, his face becoming serious, "when you know you're driving your wife up the wall, you've got to try to make a few positive changes."

Jaime gazed at him, suddenly feeling teary. Those brown eyes - when she did eventually die, her last thoughts on earth would be of those brown eyes, which told her everything she ever needed to know. She knew how much she was loved by those eyes, and she knew how much those eyes needed to see love in hers.

She shifted forward, causing the water to slosh and eddy around her, and kissed the back of his hand. "You saved me today, you know."

He looked puzzled.

She nodded. "I thought we were finished there at the end - we just couldn't get that hatch open - and then I told myself that there was no way I was going to die in there and never see you again."

He shifted closer, kissed her softly, and placed his chin on the edge of the bathtub. She lifted her other hand from the bath and rubbed her thumb across his forehead, as if to smooth out the rumples left there by innumerable stresses. A trail of bubbles and water trickled down over his nose.

"So you can quit looking so worried." She kissed him. "I love you, Bup, with all my heart. I really, really do. I need you." She smiled sheepishly. "And I'm sorry I've been such a ol' bag lately."

"That's okay.You're entitled."

"No it's not okay." she replied. "You're too sweet to me."

"Too sweet?" Oscar laughed. "I think the wine is getting to you. What do you say we get you out of there?" Rising to his feet he took a towel from the rack and held it out. "It would be a sad irony if you slipped under and drowned after what you've been through today."

Jaime laughed. "What a charming thought." She stood and stepped slowly and gingerly out of the bath. "Ohhh..." she groaned. In recent years she found extreme physical stress left her stiff and achy, particularly where her bionic parts met her poor, fallible human flesh. She would be feeling the effects of this adventure for days to come. "I'm getting too old for this kind of thing."

"Music to my ears." Oscar wrapped her up in the towel and held her. Sheltered up against him, she closed her eyes and sighed in contentment. He was so large, so enveloping, so strong, and so gentle. The fact that she could throw him across the room made the size and power of his body no less thrilling to her.

"I need to see you sometimes, Bup. I need to be part of your life."

"I know, Babe, I know." He kissed her forehead. "I was doing some thinking today too, believe me. We'll get it all sorted out tomorrow, okay? Not tonight."

A few moments later, warm, dry, and safe, wearing Oscar's pyjama top, she pulled the covers up to her chin and resisted the pull of sleep. When he nestled down beside her and shut out the lights, she wrapped herself around him and kissed him.

"Hey..." His voice was smooth and low, "aren't you supposed to be worn out?"

"Yeah," she murmured, "but I need you... I need you to be close..."

"Oh Babe," he answered, slipping his arms around her. "I need that too."

He parted her lips with his own, kissing and nibbling, his tongue seeking and caressing hers. She felt an instant surge of love and desire. Pulling her gently on top of him, he slipped the pyjama top over her head and began to knead her body with sensual hands, massaging her hips and her back and her overtaxed left arm. His lips moved lovingly over her shoulders and neck, under her jaw line to her ear. She was so tired she drifted away for a moment, suddenly freed out into deep space, where she floated, warm and at peace, before yearning brought her back to the loving cocoon that was her husband.

"I'm losing you." he chuckled.

"Never." she breathed.

He rolled them both over.

He gazed at her in the dark. "I'm so in love with you." he said quietly as he stroked her cheek, his voice thick with emotion. "I hope you know that. So in love... I don't always show it like I should, but..."

"Shhhh..." she soothed, "...besame mucho."

He made love to her gently and quietly, with a deep tenderness, as their bodies expressed what was in their hearts - a desire for perfect union, the need to be one person instead of two.

**----**

She didn't much feel like a worthy recipient of the honorary lunch set for that afternoon at the mayor's mansion. When she and Oscar finally woke up around ten, it took considerable effort to drag herself out of bed and make herself presentable. Their clothes had returned from the hotel dry cleaner, but Oscar's suit was completely ruined, and Jaime's clothes were still indelibly stained by rust. They thought of running out to buy her an outfit, but she decided it might be useful for the mayor to get some notion of the state of the city waterworks. She put on her new belt, retrieved from Oscar's pocket and decided to make the best of it.

The limousine pulled up to Gracie Mansion at around noon.

"Too bad Steve wouldn't stay." Oscar said, peering out the window at the mansion that had been the mayor's residence for generations. "He just couldn't stand the idea of being in a wheelchair."

"Yeah, it is too bad." Jaime said, with little conviction. As usual, she had conflicting feelings about Steve - touched by his declaration of devotion and yet not entirely convinced by it either. She figured he liked to keep her in his mind as some sort of lost ideal, and that the actual reality of who she was and what she wanted from life had little to do with his vision of her. But then maybe she was being unfair. He was certainly _fresh_, that much was clear - but Oscar needn't know that.

The mayor, looking as though he hadn't a care in the world, greeted them with open arms.

"I want to show you off." he said to Jaime, taking her arm. "You don't mind, do you Oscar?"

"Of course not." he smiled, content to remain in the background.

"First we have to have a little talk." Jaime said firmly to Lieberman. "And this chat has to involve Chuck Souski. He is here, isn't he?"

"Yes he is." replied Lieberman, pointing to the back corner of the large and elegant room. Souski was looking ill at ease, clutching a drink and shifting his weight from foot to foot, so clean he was almost unrecognizable. When he saw them coming in his direction, he straightened and immediately walked to Oscar.

"I owe you an apology." he said, shaking Oscar's hand. "I was a real pain in the ass yesterday, and I'm sorry."

"That's all right." Oscar replied easily. "We were all pretty keyed up."

"That's quite the wife you've got there." he said, smiling at Jaime. "I don't know how you did what you did, Ms. Sommers, but we're all so grateful. I can't begin to tell you how much."

"Thank you. Please, call me Jaime."

"Mr. Goldman..." interrupted a young woman appearing at his side, "the Secretary of State is on the telephone for you."

"Excuse me." Oscar said to his companions and followed her out.

"Now, Mr. Mayor - Frank," Jaime launched in, "have you been down in those tunnels?"

"I went down with Chuck once, but it was a long time ago."

"Well, if I may be so bold, I think you need to go down there again so you see what men like Chuck are doing every day of the week."

"I've been telling him for years..." Chuck joined in.

Lieberman held up his hands. "It's not that I'm unsympathetic, I assure you - quite the contrary! There are just so many priorities right now. I obviously haven't given the issue the attention it needs."

"Well, you need to put this right at the top." confirmed Jaime. "Those men are so important to this city that they're not allowed to strike, but they're not really appreciated either - and this city would be in dire shape without them. This situation with the O'Dwyers didn't have to happen - and you sure don't want it to happen again."

"Indeed. You're absolutely right." Lieberman nodded solemnly.

"Thank you." Chuck murmured, leaning into Jaime gratefully.

"I'm sorry it turned out to be two of your boys." Jaime said, placing her hand on Chuck's arm.

"Thanks." he said, shaking his head. "They were such good guys. I'm still finding it hard to believe."

"Chuck, will you take me down the hole first thing tomorrow? I can't disappoint Jaime."

"You bet."

Jaime felt a hand on her elbow and turned. It was Oscar.

"Can I talk to you a moment? he asked, a mysterious look on his face.

"Of course...is everything all right?" she asked nervously as he guided her to an unpopulated corner.

"Yes - don't worry. The world is turning as it should, for now anyway."

"Well?" Jaime asked, still feeling rattled.

He hesitated for a moment and scratched the back of his head. "The Secretary wanted to know when I was coming to the State department."

"What? Really?" Jaime could feel her mouth hanging open as she experienced two conflicting emotions at once. She was pleased for him - he so deserved recognition - but she was also absolutely horrified."Wha - what did you say?"

"I told him I wasn't."

"You did?" She was shocked. Oscar was an ambitious man - was he actually telling her he had refused?

"In fact, I guess I gave him my resignation. One more year, Babe, and I'm out of there."Jaime's jaw dropped further. Lowering his head closer to hers he said quietly, "I had to confess that in choosing between the well being of the entire population of New York and the well being of my wife, I was hard pressed to pick the population of New York, so I thought it was time he found himself a new boy."

She was almost unable to speak. "You...you're..._quitting_...the OSI?"

He nodded. "The Secretary said they couldn't afford to lose me, which was... nice... and wondered if I might consider some kind of consultancy position to both the OSI and the State department - something that would keep me out of your hair, as he put it. I ought to be able to keep the same hours as a dedicated schoolteacher might."

"Oh thank God." she sighed, leaning into him. "I couldn't see you being retired."

He laughed and hugged her. "Well it's a good thing I accepted the offer."

"Oh Oscar..." Tears filled her eyes and relief swept from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet. Only at that moment did she finally recognize the extent of the pressure they had been living under - like the frog sitting in a pot of water that warms so slowly it can't tell when the water is too hot to live in.

"Oh, are you going to cry? I hate it when you cry." he smiled, pulling back to look at her.

She gulped back the tears and took his face in her hands.

"Are you sure about this?" she whispered.

"Babe, I spent all day yesterday trying to figure out how I would say this to you - if I got the chance." His expression was earnest. "You give me so much, every day. You put me back together every day. And then I go out and give everything to my job - and it's never going to be enough. And what do you get out of the deal?" He shook his head. "Not much. I want to be everything for you - the way you are for me."

Jaime would remember that day at the Mayor's mansion forever. It was a beautiful lunch, featuring the best food from the extraordinary array New York had to offer - Italian, Chinese, French, Ukrainian and much more. The Indian desserts were particularly delicious. There was a great deal of celebration, many toasts, and much praise for her. But that wasn't what Jaime would remember. When she thought back on that day she would recall that she had never been more in love. She sat beside her handsome silver haired husband with the same pleasure and pride she had eight years earlier. She conversed politely with her companions but each time her eyes met his, everyone else disappeared. There was only him.

**----**

Deepa Bhattacharjee leaned out of their third floor apartment window and looked for Veena and Kishor. Somehow it amused her to see them from above - their shiny black heads, their awkward children's gaits thrown into a completely different perspective.

The drop in water pressure yesterday had not escaped her notice, but she held off calling the landlord. Ten minutes later it had come back full force and she was happy she hadn't made a fuss. So the water system was not perfect, but then if everything were perfect all the time it would just seem normal - and then it would not be perfect anymore. If her gulab jaman was for some reason not as delicious as usual, (like yesterday's batch - it had something to do with the concentration of the sugar syrup) it only served to remind everyone that they had once tasted perfection and if they were lucky, they might taste it again. The big order she made this morning had been perfect.

Perfection could not exist without imperfection. Every sensible person knew this.


End file.
